Hi I'm Steve from West and NorthWest London. I am increasingly concerned of late by the lack of aisle protocol in both Tesco and Sainsbury as well as more local supermarkets. Shoppers simply have no concept of purpose and space any more. They seem to treat supermarket shopping as some kind of social event which not only includes the reuniting of long lost friends with much hugging and "ooh fancy meeting you in here after...how long has it been?..." but also seems to provide an open forum for personal, local and international gossip! I can tell you, speaking as a serious and focussed shopper that making my way purposefully along the breakfast cereal aisle only to be blocked by a series of apparently abandoned and nearly empty trollies strewn 'willy-nilly' accross the gangway infuriates the Niflhel out of me. Then, if you can identify the trolley owners and politely ask them to move one is simply sneared at. If you have the audacity to touch 'their' trolley with 'their' purchases in you are treated as if you were stealin...OH...SORRY...this is the skating one isn't it?...sorry...er yeah...

I've recently taken up inline skating after 50 years of not skating. It's absolutely addictive and I can go forwards quite successfully and I'm starting to turn a bit but not well or with any confidence. I can't seem to stop at all except for jumping onto the grass (given that there is grass!). Nevertheless I want learn all sorts of stuff before I get too old (don't worry I still ride a 200mph motorcycle)...alright before the bike kills me! My only child is 10 and his step-mum (who skates well albeit on the 4 wheeled transverse things from the 1980's) started to teach him to skate 18 months or so ago. Now my child is seriously NOT sporty, physical or brave but bless him he got his inline skates on and tried really hard. He fell over and got up and tried again which was never really him before. Basically he put me to shame cos I said I wasn't really interested. My wife bought me a pair of skates from Oxfam. Lord only knows what they are but they ain't the normal things. They're called CHAOS3's which I think is some sort of extreme trick type skate things. They look pretty cool and kind of go with my bike gear but when I'm in the company of 'real' skaters they look at the skates and nod with respect only to crease up with laughter when they see me skating. Hey I'm old enough to take that sort of thing and of course they are soon humbled when I get on the motorcycle they've all been admiring at the other end of the car park! So Hey that's my story...longer than most but I'm old and I have more time. I want to skate well and I want my boy to continue skating for the rest of his life if he wants too. I think it's great excersise, it's outdoors away from the dreaded computer games, it's social (I hope), It's skillful, artistic, challenging, non gender dominated, relatively inexpensive, globally possible, it's a great buzz without the narcotics and if you get it wrong you don't just start that level again...it hurts and you have to think about life for a moment!Skating has quite a few things in common with motorcycling really.

I'm coming down to Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon if the weather's ok. I know it's not really the season but I understand there should be something going on.Hopefully see you thereSteve

Biker Steve wrote:... I think it's great excersise, it's outdoors away from the dreaded computer games, it's social (I hope), It's skillful, artistic, challenging, non gender dominated, relatively inexpensive, globally possible, it's a great buzz without the narcotics and if you get it wrong you don't just start that level again...it hurts and you have to think about life for a moment!

Couldn't agree more, Steve. My lass and I like how it attracts people of all ages and walks of life too. The only real mystery is why more people don't do it...